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The Weight of Water.

Shreve, Anita (author).

Shreve, an award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction, has crafted a tour de force that will beguile readers with its depth, passion, and power. Jean a professional photographer, is hired to shoot a photo-essay about a tragic murder that took place in 1873 on Smuttynose Island, off the New Hampshire coast. Two women were brutally hacked to death, and a third barely survived to identify the killer, who was hanged for the crime. Jean persuades her husband, her five-year-old daughter, her brother-in-law, and his girlfriend to accompany her to Smuttynose to photograph the house where the murder was committed. She soon becomes completely absorbed by the sensational case, learning from trial records, newspaper clippings, and the victims’ personal journals how the murder wreaked emotional havoc, shattered lives, and destroyed a family forever. But a parallel tragedy, horrifyingly similar to the one in 1873, is about to occur. Just as the murder survivor found that a single moment changed her life forever, so Jean finds that a single action alters everything for her. Shreve’s story is at once powerfully affecting and indescribably sorrowful, exploring the tenuous nature of happiness, the frailty of the human psyche, and the catastrophe of unthinking impulse. A masterfully written, riveting must-have for all collections. (Reviewed January 1 & 15, 1997) Emily Melton